Starting out, Electronic or acoustic? (Drum Kits in general)

Member Name: Tony elkin

Product:	Drum Kits in general
Date:	09/05/07 (4159 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Roland TD3K Electronic.Very realistic feel,can set up to 32 different sounds, convenient, and quiet.

Disadvantages: Need to buy £300-500 worth of amp and speakers to gig with it.

The problem with all reviews is that it can be a justification as to why one bought it! However I would not hesitate to get rid of it if I thought it was not right for me, so read on and take this entirely at face value, but remember it's from MY perspective.

Hi, decided after 40 years not playing to get over the transition from military to rock drummer. Found a studio and a good tutor and booked lessons. Told him, want enough to bash out a solid rock beat and a couple of neat fills first, 3 lessons, and we worry about technique if I like it. Done.
Expected acoustic kit but he had a Roland TD3 in his studio, a tandem pair in fact, one for us both. Bitterly disappointed as I had tried some pads a long while ago and found them dead as s***.

He put the headphones on me, said bash away and WOW, man, it was like the beach landing scene in Saving Private Ryan! I could not believe it.

After the lesson I surfed e-bay but they were selling used for nearly as much as a new kit, there are some mugs around.... Knocked that on the head and mail ordered one x TD 3KW from Rocking Rooster at £599 (good firm).
It came so welllllllllllll packed it was a pain, everthing tripple wrapped in plastic plastic and boxes in more boxes. Took an hour to set up the "scaffolding" and get the pads screwed on and connected, plugged in the 'phones and away we went. After a couple of days I worked out how to use the synth controls and set up a perfect couple of kits for me, one rock and one jazz.

The snare sits where it should on a separate arm between my legs, 3 toms nicely positioned and set up for fusion or rock at will above and side of where the 22 bass would be, hi hats and foot pedal, kick pedal (had to buy the beater and a throne seperately, forgot that so played night one standing up) and a crash and a ride.

The scaffolding is well made, plastic coated and the clamps once set are immovable, uses a neat key tightener. The snare tension is tunable like the real thing, and electronically you can set the attack and decay profiles of the cymbals to get them just right for your style of playing.(optional, as it all comes with a general purpose setting and a master reset in case you screw it all up). The triggers and volume on the pads / cymbals are individual too, so you can decided how hard you want to hit the thing to get sound out of it. Snare has Rim, centre and edge shots.

It has an extra input to the audio module, and I am going to add another general purpose pad so I can get either a cymbal, tambourine, cowbell or tom out of it as needed.That will be £90 for pad stand and cable.

Then I learned how to feed my Mp3player and PC / DVD Tutor into it, and get the output into my 100W gaming speakers.

What's good about it? Well, everything!! Sounds right, feels right and I can practise into the early hours hitting the pads as hard as I like and only annoying myself.
No regrets in buying the electronic version at all despite both my tutor and friends telling me to go acoustic with deadening pads. Sorry purists, bit I need hundreds of hours on this thing and it does the job perfectly.

Am now looking for an acoustic set as well. Research tells me it's got to be a Yamaha stage custom, used at around £500. I guess I am lucky that forking out for another kit is not too much of a problem and do understand people that have to make a choice for one or the other.

I will keep the Roland at home and use it daily, the acoustic kit will not be set up in the house, it's only needed for gigs, and then only really for show as I could quite happily play on the Roland.

Summary: I would recommend thie TD3KW it if you have the money to spend on a practice kit